Orange charging 1.50 for itemised phone bills

[fariba3]

Has anyone heard that orange are about to start charging 1.50 for getting itemised phone bills? i think it's disgusting and one more way to get more money out of its customers especially since i have caught some illegal charges being placed on my account a few times by orange.

 

Is there anything that we can do about this? Is anyone else as mad about it as i am?

[pmhread]

I'm not mad at all.... I use 02

 

Vote with your wallet and move to another supplier... I take it this is compulsary?

[survivor]

fariba,

 

tel them that youno longer want an itemised bill as you will check it online - I already do that and there is no charged levied for online billing..

[Raindancer]

Orange will not drop the £1.50 charge, I see alot of companies are trying to stop paper bills in favour of online biling. This saves them money on paper, plus helps a little towards the enviroment.

 

In my opinion, i think its a good idea to get away from paper.

[cerberlus]

But I think Orange should have told it's customers first !!!!

I've been with orange for years when my contract runs out in March I'm voting with my feet

[survivor]

I'ved just gone to Orange from T-Mobile - when Itried to call t-mobile, they had a recorded message saying that they were busy helping new customers..

 

Orange has worked out far cheaper for me, and I'm now looking at claiming back charges from T-Mobile..

 

Survivor..

[buzby]

They did explain the charge - it is NOT across the board, and depends on the tariff you are on. The advance warning was 3 months ago and was printed on the bill, this was to give users the chance to opt out in advance. I'm unsure whether full itemisation details can be viewed on the web as an alternative, however I agree it is a sad day for customer services when the data is freely available, and their urge to screw every penny results in you being changed an unreasonable amount for the information, it most certainly does NOT reflect their costs.

 

Incidentally, my first Cellnet bill (July 1986) charged itemisation at £2.50 per invoice - 20 years ago!

[Rooster-UK]

I don't get bills......I'm on pay-as-you-go.

[MARTIN3030]

For the stat 10.00 fee you can request ALL your itemised phone bills.Orange

pay as you go customers can get them free by sending a request to their data protection office in Sunderland.

[wahahey]

I've joined this forum just to tell you this:

 

If you absolutely insist, Orange will waive the charge.

 

As an existing customer I don't see how they can suddenly levy a new charge, so I told them how disgusted I was and refused their original offer of a 3 month waiver. They have now waived the charge 'indefinitely'. If this period comes to an end I will probably go to the lowest tariff and pick up a pay-as-you-go for another company, as a point of principle.

 

The more people who do this the better. The worst part is the way they try to tell us that it is for our benefit, but I don't recall being asked for my opinion...

 

As Orange told me 'it is a business decision' aimed solely at increasing profit. But of course the increase comes at existing customers' expense, so why should we accept it?

[buzby]

The charge is levied ONLY on consumers - business tariff users get free itemisation. (FWIW, since Orange started, they offered free billing, free itemisation, calls billed per second, no minute rounding, 4 hour emergency replacement handset and a whole pile of good stuff. It didn't take new owners France Telecom long to get rid of all the good stuff....

 

As for 'accepting it' with all the others staring to do the same, there's little option.

[Emil]

I signed up with Orange Mobile broadband in August 2009. I have received two bills for 6 weeks usage of £969.15. My limit was 3GB per month and I have been with Vodafone before this and never exceeded their limit.

Basically, I have been using my connection to access my mail and facebook and a few Windows updates (maybe 0.2GB downloading per month)

 

I have declined the invoices but according to their customer service they have already given me a bad credit report.

 

Have sent an email to Jackie O'Leary (vice president of Orange Personal Communications). After that I got contaced by Executive department. First they offered me 25% off, when I did not agreed to that, the next offer was 50% off. I offered them to pay 25% and have a written document that I would not receive any bad credit report. At this point they are not willing to offer me that.

 

To me this totally outrageous, I know I am not responsible for the 19GB they claim I have been using. In Executive department they said that the case might be that I left the dongle in the computer over night and that is has been updating internet during that time.

I believe there is a major fault in Orange billing system and from what I learn many people share the same experience.

 

The next step for me is to send an email to BBC Watchdog and as many news papers as I can. I am not going Orange get away with charging me this amount and claim it is correct and also give me a bad credit report while I am in a dispute of their outrageous invoices.

 

From an online search I've found that there is a huge number of people having difficulties with Orange Mobile broadband billing system at the moment.

 

Together we can make a huge complaint to CISAS (the organisationwho deals with issues to Orange)

 

/Emil

Edited January 18, 2010 by MARTIN3030
Personal info removed.

[buzby]

An observation - I don't know what version of Windows you are running, but my Windows Updates for the last 3 weeks are nearly 3Gb.

 

You can only argue from a position of strength when you have the FACTUAL details of the transfers used (and your liability for them). What happnened in another situation on a different network is irrelevant.

[Emil]

I know I have not downloaded 19 GB in six weeks time.

Many people seem to share the same experience with Orange Mobile broadband. The comparison between Vodafone and Orange is quite good to do, because from day 1 up until the service was disconnected the usage was high to the extreme with Orange.

From a simple google search I found at least 15 people describing the same thing. And that is probably just the tip of an iceberg.

[buzby]

How can yiu be so sure? Orange rely on billing to ensue they get paid for the services they provide. Not make the statement oyu need to have proof of the disparity... for example, your OWN monitoring s/w that notes your login times and transfer volumes.? Without this, you are whistling in the wind, and the fact others are complaining about 'high bills' is no support for your position. The billing systems are certificated, but your 'gut' feeling is not. If you've not taken the precaution to monitor your own usage, you cannot hope to sccessfully challenge them.

 

Have you asked for a breakdown of volumes? But then, if you don;t keep track yourself - this wouldn;t be of much use, apart from confirm there was a a few big transfers that caused the meter to clock up extreme usage.

 

Mobile BB is a misnomer - the costs (unless capped) will always be more expensive than standard BB necause of the kuxury of connecting from anywhere.

 

Unless you can disprove their data volumes, you'll have your credit file fried - and this is no different from any other utility.

[Emil]

Before this I was using Vodafone for 18 month, the usage was never above 3 GB a single month!

Checking the usage report from Orange tells that usage is high from the day one up until the service was disconnected.

Many, many others are writing about the same thing on this site Orange Mobile Broadband - Best deals, offers and reviews.

I am hundred percent sure that I have not used the 19 GB data that they claim. I have not been doing any downloading, only used my internet for Facebook, checking mails and regular browsing. Nothing in my online behaviour has changed. If you put so much trust in a company, then I suppose that is good for you. But I am afraid that I have lost all my trust in Orange.

[buzby]

There's no need for 'trust' - in fact outside of the family, I trusr no firm. I monitor and backup all my services and meter readings, so if there is a dispute (and there usually is at some stage) I can provide substantiation should their billing be erroneous (especially when physical meter readings get transposed), but with BB, there is less to play with as the transfer of data is something you cannot easily quantify, unless you takes steps to protect yourself.

 

You again refer to what life was like under Vodafone. Irrelevant - as this would only be significant if you were on a matched (ie identical) tariff. And we all know they are not. Being 'sure' of something cuts no ice with certificated billing systems, unless you can prove errors - and as these seem consistent, rather than a simple one-off, a glitch seems even more unlikely.

 

As I mentioed earlier, seeking solace with others who feel they have high bills prove nothing. I have high utility bills too, but I knew from my meter readings these were going through the roof.

 

There was nother thread recently where someone complained to their telco that a range of calls to 0845 bumbers made in the early hours was not their responsibility as it wasn't made by 'anyone in the household'. It transpired it was the Sky box in the home, but they maintenained that wasn;t their problem!

 

Computer data is a real problem when wireless, apart from the high cost, the first thing anyone knows of problems is when the bill comes in... when it is too late. Just look at complaint over mobile data where the handset and the software installed kept updaing and refreshing (as it was designed to do). Becauswe the user had not disabled this on the mobile network, the high data transfer charges were not only correct, but the charges stood. If you donlt wish to pay for the service, don;t make use of it - or show fiscal restraint by monitoring it, not by hoping for the best.

 

Since you've not kept track of the UL/DL to your computer, here is something practical you can do. Get the network to provide a detailed breakdown listing the data volumes by date (and IP address, if possible). You can then either check the PC for those websites, OR look for files with a date stamp covering the period be scrutinised. If you dinf them on your HD, it's fair to assume the transfer did take place, even though you were not aware of it. It does;nt ease the pain, but it does prove how it can happen.

 

Wireless BB is not a replacement for cable or ADSL BB, it is just too expensive.

[MARTIN3030]

Please dont post personal email details-this is for your own protection as well as in keping to site rules.

If you want to encourage others to mount a campaign,then feel free-theres no reason why you should not do so,just be careful about posting up identifiers.

[Human Writes]

Together we can make a huge complaint to CISAS (the organisationwho deals with issues to Orange)

 

/Emil

 

No you can't - CISAS don't allow group complaints, you'd have to raise your own complaint and prepare your own claim against Orange if you intend to use CISAS.

 

Whilst adjudication is a relativley informal process, it still operates in accordance with the laws of England and Wales and is an evidential process.

 

As this is a civil matter the burden of proof would lie with you, this means as Buzby says above the onus lies with you to prove your claim against by Orange providing evidence to support your assertions that their bills are incorrect. Frankly at the moment you have no evidence which proves this.

 

Buzby mentions requesting itemised data bills and checking these against your browser history. This may be useful, however, you don't have to be using your web browser to be able to access the internet, antivirus updates, operating system updates, other software updates i.e iTunes, Adobe Reader etc all operate in the backgound without leaving a trace in your web browser. Instant messaging, FTP programmes, P2P file sharing programs also operate in this way, I'm sure with a bit of thought I could think of more examples, you can't prove with your web browsing history that Orange's bill is incorrect.

 

If you went as far as adjudication or court would come down to your word against Orange's bills and their assertion that their bill is correct, they don't have to prove their innocence or demonstrate that the bill is correct, their innocence is rebutally presumed - this means if they say the bills are correct they are assumed to be.

 

In my view you stand little chance of winning an adjudication or court claim as you'd have significant difficulties in overcoming the burden of proof should this matter go any further.

 

I would advise you to accept Orange's offer of a reduction of 50% and then pay the rest off, in installments if necessarry. Given what you've said so far they are not willing to go higher than 50% and whilst this matter goes on they are trashing your credit file which will cause you long term harm for the next six years.

Edited January 19, 2010 by Human Writes
Typos

[buzby]

For clarification, I didn't say check the web browser history, but to look at the date stamps for large files downloaded of similar dates.

[Emil]

Orange offered me to pay 50% off the charges with no guarantee that they will not give a bad credit report if I agree to pay(!)

The proof they sent me so far is data usage and I am sure that these usage reports are the same as what the dongle tell me.

They explain the high charges by telling me I have left the dongle in the computer over night, and the dongle has updated itself.

I am sure I am not the only one of thousands of Orange Mobile broadband customer who has experienced this (been reading quite a few reviews of their Mobile broadband saying the same thing as I do)

They are unwilling to provide me with information of websites that has been browsed or files that has been downloaded.

They are being very difficult to deal with I'd say.

[buzby]

Being realistic - if the dongle confirms the data transfers took place, then cleary Orange and not fabricating their bill... the transfers took place and as a result, you agreed to pay them for the data you used. Their billing system may not hold the data you require, but it WILL be there - somewhere - as they have to by law retain this.

 

I accept that you were not aware of the amounts that were (or could be) run up using the device, but then how can it be Orange's fault? When apportioning blame, you need to take account of the culpability of the user.

 

Jumping into a taxi and saying "Take me to the airport...!" only to find on arrival he wants £70 when you thought it would be £10 doesn;t get you out og paying the amount asked on the meter.

[Emil]

I would suggest to put a consumer view into this;

is it right to charge someone almost 1000 pound only for browsing internet over six weeks?

[buzby]

Is it fair taxpayers should fund the banks because the government thought it a great idea, and we have to pay for it for decades? Is it fair that someone who buys a Florida timshare but because of illness now cannot fly there to enjoy it yet still has to pay for it?

 

Life is unfair. Your consumer view may be the charitible way, but unrealistic, unless you live in some utopia where bad deals are outlawed.

[Emil]

Yes. Even though I have not read all the terms and conditions of Orange Mobile Broadband I do not believe you should be reliable to pay them £961.73 for six weeks fair usage of their internet service.

Other customers of Orange Mobile Broadband claimed to have had a fair usage of internet have witnessed in forums about having received outrageous bills as well.

I am in a strong believe that something gone completely wrong with their tracking of my usage.

If I do pay them now I will receive a bad credit report for a delayed payment. If I fight for it and a third party judge in their favor I end up paying and receive a bad credit report. A bit of a catch 22 I'd say.